T-Mobile USA announced new international data plans yesterday in a New York event that somehow involved Shakira. Under the new plan T-Mobile users on the current Simple Choice plan pay no extra fees for international 2G data and text in more than 100 countries starting October 31. Voice calls will cost 20 cents a minute. However if you want high speed data, also known as , 'something that will do more than download my email' you'll need a speed pass. $15 gets you 100 MB for 1 day $25 for 200 MB for a week or $50 for 500 MB for two weeks. T-Mobile also intoricued an international calling plan allowing calls and texts from the US to more than 100 countries for $10 a month and 20 cents a minute.

Fitbit is on the scene with a new smartwatch/fitnessband hybrid - the Fitbit Force is a $129.95 bracelet has a small OLED screen right on the band so you can easily tell the time and how many steps you have taken or how many miles you've gone. Like Fitbit's Flex bracelet and its Zip and One trackers, the device tracks the steps you've taken, the distance you've gone, the calories you've burned, and updates the companion app with data via bluetooth, but the app can also update the band itself with information like time and incoming call notifications.

TechCrunch reports that Twitter is testing a new service that will send direct messages to users. The test is occurring through an experimental account called Event Parrot. Its description says to follow it "to receive direct messages that help you keep up with what's happening in the world."

Bloomberg reports BlackBerry is more open to breaking the company into pieces for a sale amid fears that Fairfax Finanical will not be able to raise enough cash to complete it's $4.7 billion bid. Last week BlackBerry approached several companies, including SAP, Cisco and Samsung, to gauge interest in purchasing parts of the company. Meanwhile in good BlackBerry news, Rogers Communications has changed its mind and decided to carry the BlackBerry Z30 after customers complained.

Dion Weisler, executive vice president of printing and personal systems at HP, said at the company's Securities Analyst meeting yesterday that indeed the PC market is shrinking, and that the push into non-Windows markets is being driven by places like China. "In China there are more tablets sold than [in] the United States. Guess what? Most of those are not on the Windows operating system," Weisler said. HP is focused on four OSes now: Microsoft, Android, Chrome, and Ubuntu.

Aereo says its Android app is coming on October 22nd, however, the app will only be available in the areas where Aereo operates. Meanwhile at the Hall of Justice - I mean at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Aereo has won a case against broadcaster Hearst. Hearst sued Aereo claiming Aereo was rebroadcasting its Channel 5 signal without permission and copyright infringement. U.S. District Judge Nathanial Gorton said Aereo did not violate copyright because Aereo's service is akin to a remote DVR.

Acer launched its C720 Chromebook line on Thursday in the US. The 2.76 pound laptop has an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 screen, 4 GB DDR3L memory and a 16GB SSD hard drive as well as an Intel Haswell processor. The C720-800 will sell for $250 and is available for pre-order on Amazon and Best Buy, though no ship date was announced.

Bloomberg Businessweek published some choice excerpts from writer Brad Stone's upcoming book "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon."Topics include the beginnings of Amazon to Bezos' biological father,the inner workings of Amazon & Bezos' leadership group, which is known as "the S Team." Stone describes Amazon as less than harmonious, and that "the people who do well at Amazon are often those who thrive in an adversarial atmosphere with almost constant friction." He also writes "Bezos abhors what he calls 'social cohesion,' the natural impulse to seek consensus." MEOW.

Las Vegas is the latest city to to be promised 1Gbps Internet service and its not from Google. Century Link, which has a 1-gig pilot service in Omaha, Nebraska will begin offering fiber to the premises to residential and small business customers in select neighborhoods soon. The service starts at $79.95 per month on a 12-month contract, or $124.94 with Prism TV, and a six-month contract.

According to Hong Kong's Oriental Daily, engineering students from the Xi'an Institute of Technology may have been forced into an internship program at Foxconn where they would assemble PlayStation 4 units. XIT students were told to join the program or they wouldn't receive credits necessary to graduate. Foxconn investigated and found students who were assigned to night shifts and overtime were placed there in violation of Foxconn's policies.

- T-Mobile's unveiled version 3.0 of its Uncarrier campaign- T-Mobile will eliminate fees for data and text messages entirely in more than 100 countries starting Oct 31.- Calling rates will be simplified. T-Mobile will charge a flat 20 cents per minute- Who's eligible? New and existing T-Mobile customers who are on a post-paid plan are eligible for the new international plan- There's a new $10 Stateside International Talk and Text plan for US customers calling to other countries. The plan includes calls for 20 and free unlimited calls to landlines in 70 of those countries

- TMo CEO John Legere put an example together: If a customer uses 72 megabytes of data, makes 32 one-minute calls back home, and sends 36 text messages a day on AT&T without an international plan, the cost would be $1,150 if that person was in Canada.- On TMo: $6.40- Data speeds are not expected to be particularly fast: CMO Mike Sievert said avg speeds would be around 128 kilobits per second- Faster speeds require more money. FOr $15, a customer gets high-speed data for up to 100MB for a single day. $20 for 200MB for one week, $50 gets 500MB at high-speeds for two weeks

Q: Will this latest move by T-Mobile get the other carriers to try the same thing soon?

HP meeting with financial analysts Wednesday- IDC: Worldwide PC shipments shrunk 7.6% Q3, Gartner 8.6%- Dion Weisler, executive vice president of printing and personal systems - "we're in a new world now with multiple operating systems, new architectures, new silicon, new graphics, new subsystems."- HP is focused on four OSes now: Microsoft, Android, Chrome, and Ubuntu- Meg Whitman: "Wintel-based devices are being aggressively displaced by ARM-based PCs and mobile devices running competing operating systems...current, long-term HP partners, like Intel and Microsoft, are increasingly becoming outright competitors."- Gartner estimates 2 million Chromebooks will sell this year and rise to 12 million by 2016Q: Google working Samsung, Acer, HP on Chromebooks. Microsoft the only manufacturer for Windows RT. Is Microsoft becoming Apple while Google becomes Microsoft? Or is Microsoft IBM with OS/2?

Taking on Lenovo: Weisler said: Grab commercial desktop market share.Grow tablet unit share from 2 percent of the market in the enterprise.Pitch features like self-healing BIOS and hardened operating systems and security.On the commercial side, HP's going to push new form factors.Push "targeted bursts" of tablet launches.Sell computing systems with multiple operating systems such as Windows 8, Android and Google's Chrome OS.

- Twitter testing a new service that will send users direct messages with news articles. @eventparrot: "Follow me to receive direct messages that help you keep up with what's happening in the world,". Twitter staff are among the account's initial followers, including Isaac Hepworth who participates in "unusual projects" at Twitter.- One DM received from the account appears to be a retweet of news from CNN's own CNNbrk breaking news account, with a link to an article. - @MagicRecs account was created to send DM alerts to followers about popular users and their tweets. The testing eventually led to a recommendation feature built into the company's iOS and Android apps that notifies users when a group of people you follow all follow the same person.

q: do personalized recs make sense via DM? good way to cater to individuals or set up future ad structure?

New Dropcam Pro, all-glass lens means sharper picture, 130 degree field of view, 8x zoom, better low light vision, $199- Zoom in response to people wanting motors and gears.- Uses 10% more bandwidth than predecessor- Bluetooth LE and an API: display temp, adjust gadgets based on motion detection, connected security systems, light switches, and climate controls - Learns regular motions "like trees in wind" to reduce unnecessary motion alerts- "We never want to be a company that makes you upgrade your stuff," he says. "Your [2010] Dropcam Echo still works. And we still have users on that, believe it or not."Q: We're really seeing more "Internet of Things" devices becoming smart. Any ideas what his could launch?

- Fitbit's new product:$129.95 Fitbit Force, its smartwatch/fitness bracelet- small OLED screen right on the band. tell the time, how many steps you've taken, how far you've walked, calories you've burned, the floors or stairs you've climbed, and even how long you have slept.- view all info through the Fitbit app, which pairs with the tracker via Bluetooth - when Force is paired w iPhone running iOS 7, you see incoming call notifications right on the display. OR With any NFC-equipped Android phone, you can tap the Force to the phone and it will automatically launch the Fitbit app.

q: does fitbit have an edge in smartwatch race b/c you already have a use for it beyond time, texts, etc (quantified self)?

- The new version of Foursquare for iOS will give you suggestions as to what to do on the lock screen- Version 6.4 of Foursquare comes with "real-time recommendations," which works in the background. The app will monitor your phone's movements and location- If Foursquare finds relevant information, it will send you a push notification- This feature was added to the Android version in August. It is now being sent to 1000 people on iPHone. Foursquare said it will slowly roll out the notifications to the rest of the audience on iPhone

Q: Will users find this invasive or useful?

.

44

.

Randomizer

We will narrow this down to one story, put your initials to the left of the story you like best

In episode 857 you discussed touchscreens with tactile feedback from Disney. What about remotes? Imagine a phone or tablet that could change the feel of the screen based on what device it was controlling. This solves the problem of having to look at the screen to change channel, volume, etc. I just hope the remote manufactures could also integrate this in a meaningful way (I'm looking at you Harmony).